


A Fresh Start

by conceptstage



Series: Critical Fiction [8]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Age Reversing, Angst, Fluff, magic shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-06-27 20:41:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 8,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15693012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/conceptstage/pseuds/conceptstage
Summary: Beau gets hit by a spell. Is this a curse or could it be the fresh start she's been waiting for?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to my tumblr. Come find me there, I'm concept-stage.

“She’s so cute,” Jester squealed, clasping her hands in front of her.

“Shhh,” Fjord hissed, clearly less thrilled than his blue friend about the current predicament. “If you get her attention she’s going to start hitting me again.”

“You grabbed her by the back of her shirt and lifted her into the air, of course she’s going to hit you. She’s little but she’s still Beau.”

They both turned to look at the little girl sitting on the bed, watching them both with her arms crossed over her chest and a pout. “I don’t like you,” she said, glaring at Fjord. Her hair was long and braided over one shoulder instead of in the undercut that had become her signature and her narrow brown eyes were wide with youth. 

Fjord cringed and took a big step away, rubbing his arm where she had hit him earlier. Jester frowned and moved over to sit beside her. “You like me though don’t you?”

The girl gave her a skeptical once over. “You’re alright.”

Jester grinned and wiggled happily. “Yes, okay so um… How old are you?”

“Nine.”

“And you don’t remember us at all?”

Little Beau paused and looked between them before shaking her head. “No. I don’t know you, I don’t know where I am or how I got here.”

“You were a grown up, you were our friend.”

“A grown up?”

Fjord shrugged. “In a loose sense of the word. You were older, at least.”

Beau glared at him and he took another big step away. She rolled her eyes and turned back to Jester. “If I  _ was _ a grown up, not that I believe you, how did this happen?”

“You don’t believe me? Why not?”

“This isn’t the first time I’ve been kidnapped by people who don’t like Father. It  _ is _ the most interesting though. Usually it’s stuffy men in suits, not pretty blue ladies.”

Jester blushed. “Oh, you called me pretty! I’m going to hug you.” She reached out suddenly for the girl but paused when Beau flinched. “Oh, sorry,” she said, pulling her hands back into her lap. “Um… Our friends should be back any minute now with clothes that will fit.”

Beau looked down at the sagging blue tank top she was wearing as a dress. “Good. So, how did this happen exactly?”

“Well, when you grow up, we’re heroes and we go into deadly dungeons to get treasure and save people and it’s a lot of fun and you kick a lot of ass and um, well, earlier our friend Nott, the little green one, she triggered a trap and you pushed her out of the way and there was this big purple gas and we, like, couldn’t see you but we heard you coughing and then when the smoke went away you were laying on the ground completely unconscious. I was so worried for you and ran over and I was crying and then I carried you back here.”

“When did I change? After the smoke?”

“No, it was after we brought you here. We were all talking and then Caleb turned around to check on you and you were like this.”

“And Caleb is…”

“The smelly one.”

Beau nodded. “With the cat.”

“Yes! You remember?”

“No, he literally had a cat on his shoulder when he left.”

Jester pouted. “Oh.”

“So, you all have a plan to change me back? Are you just waiting to see it whatever this is wears off?”

“We have another friend,” Fjord spoke up, flinching when she turned to glare at him. “He’s really good at healing magic, he has a spell that should restore you. He’s not here at the moment. We’re going to take you to meet him.”

Beau didn’t respond, just continued to glare at him while he got more and more unnerved.

Thankfully, the door opened a moment later and Caleb and Nott came back in with an arm full of clothes, the orange cat trotting in behind them. “I didn’t know how long she would be like this, so I got a few things.” He dropped the pile on the bed and then moved hurriedly away from the small girl, wringing his hands nervously.

Beau hopped off the bed with a huff and started rifling through the clothes. “Why are they all blue?” she asked. “Were they out of the other colors?”

Caleb blushed. “Ah,  _ nein _ , they were not. I just assumed… I am sorry, I will go back out.”

Beau snorted and shook her head. “I’m just messing with you, blue is fine.” She picked up a few pieces of clothing and turned to glare at the others. “Are you all just going to stand there and watch then?” she asked sardonically and they all scrambled to get out of the room, gathering in the hall of the tavern they were staying in. Fjord nodded politely to a passerby as the man tried to squeeze passed them.

Jester sighed heavily. “I don’t know what to talk about with her. She’s like Beau, but a little scarier, if that was possible.”

Caleb shook his head. “This is what Beau was like when we first met her. It’s easy to forget because she likes us now, but she used to be just like this.”

Nott nodded. “Yeah, she’s back to how she was before La Benda.”

Jester frowned. “She was never like this with me.”

“Really? You met her before the rest of us.”

Fjord sighed and shook his head. “No, it’s true. They hit it off right away. She was only like this towards me when it was just the three of us.”

They fell into silence and then, all at once, realized there was no sound coming from the bedroom. Nott cleared her throat and knocked. “Beau? You okay in there?” She turned the knob to find it locked. “Beau? Are you decent?” No answer. She hurriedly picked the lock and opened the door, peeking in without opening it completely, just in case. “Beau?”

There was a breeze that drew her eyes to the window. It was hanging wide open and there was no Beau to be seen.


	2. Chapter 2

“Did you find her?” Jester asked, panting for breath as she came to a stop beside Caleb. They had been running all over town for the last two hours trying to find their little friend to no success.

He shook his head and looked over at Nott and Fjord as they caught up as well. “I’ve been casting locate object to find all the clothes she took with her but they all keep saying they’re at the tavern, she must have abandoned them on her way out. I haven’t found one she’s wearing yet.”

“Wait, they’re all at the tavern?” Fjord asked. “Then why have we been running around like this?  _ She’s _ still in the tavern.”

Jester blinked as all the pieces fell together in her mind. “Oh, we’re so stupid!” She turned on her heel and lead them all back to where their frantic search had started. Caleb burst through the door first, looking around the bar room hurriedly. “She’s not here,” Jester called, coming in behind him. “Keep looking.”

Fjord, Jester, and Caleb all split up to search the tavern and Nott took a moment to think. If  _ she  _ wanted to get away from these people but didn’t know what city she was in or who she could trust, where would she go? She took a single step back out the door and looked up at the roof.

The climb from their second floor room wasn’t bad. She could see even an extremely young Beau making it with little issue. She tried to be silent as she pulled herself up, but it must not have worked because the young girl was staring right at her as she pulled her feet up over the edge.

“Uh… hi.”

Beau’s legs were crossed under her but Nott could tell from experience that she was ready to leap up and run at a moment’s notice. “Hi. You’re Nott, right?”

“Yeah. Can I sit with you?” The girl shrugged and Nott took that to mean ‘yes, but don’t try anything or I’ll kick your ass’. She usually added ‘I’ll kick your ass’ to everything Beau said, just to be safe. She crawled up the shingles and got as close as she could before Beau started to tense. She sighed and folded her legs under her as well. “I know you’re scared.”

“You have no idea how I feel right now.”

“You’d be surprised. Try looking like a goblin and feeling like… well, not a goblin.” Beau didn’t respond and they sat in silence for a few more seconds. “Everyone was really worried about you. Still is, I didn’t tell them you were up here.”

“How did you know where to find me?”

“I thought, where would a scared little girl with no idea who to trust and no clue where she is hide? And here you were. It was smart to come here, had us running all over town.”

“I don’t know who you people are. I just want to go…” She paused and looked away. “Well, I don’t want to go home. I just want to understand what’s going on.”

Nott was quiet again, not wanting to startle her. She cleared her throat as she remembered something and held up her wrist to show off the jade bracelet Beau had given her. “Do you know this?”

Beau glanced at her with narrowed, suspicious eyes and then shrugged and looked away again. “It’s a bracelet.”

“A jade bracelet. You gave it to me. You didn’t tell me when you got it, I was hoping it was when you were young and you’d remember it now. Well, you might have told me where you got it, I don’t really pay attention when you talk unless it’s sad or violent.” Beau laughed a little and Nott counted it as a little victory. She slipped the bracelet off her wrist and sat it on Beau’s knee. “I know you don’t trust easy, but we’re not going to hurt you. Believe me when I say that we love you. I never told you this but  _ I _ love you. Everything will make sense after our friend casts his spell on you to change you back.”

Beau didn’t respond for a moment and just stared at the bracelet. She slipped her fingers through it and pulled it down onto her own wrist. “My mom always told me not to let myself get taken to a secondary location when I got kidnapped.”

Nott huffed. “What kind of messed up fucking childhood did you have where you were getting kidnapped regularly? The fuck? You never told any of us that, I want a full explanation when you’re back to normal.”

Beau gave her a sad smile. “Alright,” she said. “I still don’t trust you, any of you, but I’ll go with you. And if for any reason, I think something is hinky, I’m gone.”

Nott nodded and started leading her back in through the window. They sat on the bed awkwardly while they waited for the others to find them and Nott ran through possible conversation starters in her head before finally settling on a proven ice breaker. She pulled out her flask and held it up. “Want some booze?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A filler chapter before we get deep in angst again.

“What’s this for?” Beau asked, throwing her bo staff up into the air and catching it while the others packed up the cart.

“That’s your staff. You hit people with it.”

“Cool,” she said grinning. She spun it around in her hand and whacked Caleb on the back with it. “Did that hurt?”

Caleb yelped and dropped the bag he was carrying. “Yes! That did hurt.” He bent over to pick up the bag and she whacked him again on the back of his thigh. He scurried away from her and glared while she laughed.

“We should stop by Pumat’s before we leave,” Jester said, climbing up into the driver’s seat on the cart.

“What? Why? Didn’t he say we cleaned him out last time we were in town, that was two weeks ago. There’s no way he’s stocked back up already,” Fjord said, huffing as he secured the last box of food. He pat the bed of the cart and looked over at Beau. “Alright, up you go.”

She came over and used his shoulder to lift herself up onto the back. “Who’s Pumat?”

Caleb looked at Jester suspiciously and she just giggled. “You just want to introduce them, don’t you?” he asked. “You want to see how she reacts to meeting him.”

“What, it’s always funny. How cool is it that she gets the chance to meet someone for the first time twice in a single lifetime? Isn’t that neat?”

He didn’t respond right away, mostly because he agreed with her. “I would like to see if he has any more incense.”

“Great! To Pumat’s! Ho!” She started moving the horses forward as Nott stepped out of the outhouse, fixing her gloves.

Nott looked up and blinked as they moved away. “Hey!” she called, running after them. “Wait for me!”

They gathered the goblin and then continued forward to the Pentamarket district. It was early, early morning. The shops were just beginning to open and the streets were mostly bare. They arrived at the Invulnerable Vagrant with no issues, besides Jester getting lost once. They eventually made it, anyway.

Beau sneered at the colorful exterior. “What kind of place is this?” she asked.

“They sell magical goods,” Caleb said, coming around the back to help her down. She ignored him and jumped down on her own. “Enchanted weapons, protective implements and the like.”

“Why did you want to show me this place? What do I need that shit for?”

Jester tried to take her hand but Beau folded her arms. The tiefling frowned and drew her hand back, before forcing a smile as she led her inside. “Good morning, Pumat!” she said, cheerily as they walked inside.

There was a large creature at the front counter, a kind Beau had never seen before. He gave them a lopsided grin. “Ah, it’s my favorite customers,” he said is a drawl that instantly made Beau feel relaxed. “What can I do for you on this fine day?”

Caleb cleared his throat and stepped forward. “You wouldn’t have happened to get any more incense?  _ Nien _ ?”

“Yes, actually! Just got a shipment in yesterday. How much do you need?”

“Forty gold worth?”

“Not a problem. Who’s your little friend there?”

Beau was staring at him, dazed. Caleb cleared his throat. “You remember our friend, Beauregard? This is… her little sister.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, little lady. I am Pumat Sol.” Another Pumat stepped out into the main room and started dusting. “Ah, Me, come meet young Beauregard’s sister.”

Beau’s eyes widened as the second firbolg came over. “H-Hi!” She said, bouncing on the balls of her feet in excitement. “You’re really tall. Are you twins?”

“We are what are known as simulacrum, little one. We are perfect copies of our Prime. We run the shop while he makes new enchantments in the back to sell. He is not in the shop at the moment, I’m afraid, or I’m sure he’s be just tickled to meetcha.”

“Copies? Magical copies? That’s badass.”

“Oh, a bit of a potty mouth on this one, huh?” He reached under the counter and pulled out a box of incense, handing it to Caleb when he slid over the gold, counting out one piece at a time. “There you go. Thank you, once again, for your patronage.”

They started to leave just as a third Pumat stepped into the shop from the outside. “Ah, good morning, friends. Enjoy the rest of your day!”

“There’s three?!”


	4. Chapter 4

Caleb and Jester were on first watch the following night. The campfire had gone down to embers and Jester was snoring off to his right. He should really wake her up so that she could help him keep watch, but she had been having so much trouble sleeping ever since Shady Creek Run, he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

There was shuffling behind him and he glanced up to see Beau wandering over to the fire. She poked it with a stick, trying to bring it back up, and took a seat in front of it. It was still disconcerting to see her so small. “Are you alright?” he asked, quietly.

She just shrugged in response and didn’t look away from the fire. “Couldn’t sleep,” she said after a few minutes of nothing.

“Why not?”

“I keep getting these… flashes. I think they’re memories, or, I don’t know, future memories. They’re stuff I think happened to older-me.”

“What kind of memories?” he asked, fascinated. He stood up and moved to sit across the fire from her. “So we don’t have to talk loudly,” he said, when she glared at him and tensed her shoulders distrustingly.

She stared at him for a moment before answering. “Bad things. People dying, people killing other people, me killing other people, my dad…” she paused and gingerly touched her fingers to her cheekbone like she was was caught in a memory before shoving both hands into her lap and clearing her throat. “There’s one memory that’s really bad. It’s why I can’t sleep.”

“What is it?”

“I think it’s the first time I killed someone.” He watched as her expression closed off and she looked away.

“We’ve all killed people,” he said. “We do it to survive, there’s no shame in surviving.”

She shook her head and he could tell she was getting worked up. He hadn’t seen Beau this emotional since Molly’s funeral. He wasn’t sure if this was just really emotional for her or if younger Beau wasn’t as good at controlling her reactions as grown Beau was. 

“It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t for survival, it wasn’t because I had no choice. It was an accident. It was pointless.”

Caleb snapped and summoned his cat to appear next to him. Beau was watching him carefully but let the cat crawl into her lap. She hesitated before finally running her fingers through Frumpkin’s fur and scratching his neck. They both jumped a little when Jester snorted in her sleep and rolled over onto her other side.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” Caleb asked, finally.

Beau shook her head. Then nodded. “Yeah. I think I was training somewhere. I might have been… sixteen? Seventeen?”

“Cobalt Soul,” he said quietly. She looked up at him sharply. “Uh, the order of monks who taught her to fight.”

“Why did I join a bunch of monks?”

“That is… a story for another time, I believe. Continue, please.”

She narrowed her eyes at him and looked back at the fire but continued describing the memory. “There was this boy. We were fighting, sparring probably. He had a big smile on his face even though his nose was bleeding. There was a teacher over on the side, an old man. He was yelling at us. Telling us to stop laughing, we were supposed to be fighting. He just kept yelling, and yelling and I felt angry and… scared? I don’t know, I felt like I needed to leave. But the teacher said I couldn’t leave until I knocked the boy out. So I cheated. I kicked him as hard as I could and when he bent over I smashed his face with my knee. I don’t know what it did to him. He just stared up at me with blood leaking from his eyes. I ran away and threw up in the corner. The teacher just said ‘next time, don’t throw up’ and sent me to the clerics.”

“That’s…  _ shiße _ … She never told us about that before.”

Beau glanced up at him, her eyebrow raised in curiosity. “Why do you do that?”

“D-Do what?”

“You’re the only one who calls old-me ‘she’ and ‘her’ like I’m not around. We’re the same person, you know.”

“Yes, I know but… I prefer to think of you as different people. I don’t want to be as familiar with you as I am with her.”

“What do you mean?” She buried her fingers in Frumpkin’s fur and the cat purred, rubbing up against her chest. She looked down at him in her lap and smiled. It was the first smile Caleb had seen since the change.

“Well, she knows things about me… terrible things, monstrous things. And, for some reason, she has not run away. I go to her when I feel like I can’t be a person anymore and she keeps me standing. I know that I cannot rely on you for that, you’re just a child. So I treat you like different people to keep myself in check.”

Beau stared at him critically. “You two aren’t dating, are you?”

Caleb choked on his own spit and covered his mouth, glancing around to make sure he hadn’t woken anyone up. No one moved or made a sound so he hoped they were still asleep. “No,” he said finally, his voice pinched and strained. He cleared his throat. “No, definitely not, that’s…. No, for several reasons.” Did younger Beau not know yet she liked women? Should he out older Beau to younger Beau? How did that work? “Just very close friends.”

Beau nodded and started poking the fire again with the hand that wasn’t stroking his cat. “Good.” Caleb wasn’t sure what she meant by that and didn’t want to ask. “If you need her,” Beau said, after several more minutes of silence where Caleb wondered if he knew a spell that could summon a hole in the ground to swallow him. “Well, I don’t know what she knew but you listened to my sad story, I can at least return the favor. We don’t hug, do we? Because hugging is off the table.”

Caleb chuckled a little and covered his mouth to hide it. “Yes, we occasionally hug. We’re very bad at it, so we don’t do it often. I will not hug you, I promise.”

She just nodded and turned her full attention to petting Frumpkin. Caleb kept an eye on the darkness around the camp and when next he looked at her she was quietly asleep, his cat curled in her lap. He walked over to the tents and grabbed a blanket, covering her shoulders and then taking his place once more across the fire to finish his watch.


	5. Chapter 5

“Little higher there,” Fjord said, gently touching the bo staff and pushing it up. “Adjust your grip, choke up a little. Good, see when you hold it like this your chest is more protected. Now, this staff is pretty big for you still, don’t be afraid to choke up a little more.”

Beau nodded and did that. “Yeah, that’s better,” she said. “Can I hit you now?” She swung at him without waiting for an answer and he laughed, moving out of her reach.

“Hold up now,” he hurried over to pick up his shield and held it up in front of his face. “Alright, now hit the shield.”

“Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of fighting?”

“We’re not fighting-”

“I’m fighting.”

“-we’re practicing. Aim is just as important as strength. Maybe more important. The strongest person in the world isn’t gonna do shit if he can’t hit anything.”

Beau pulled up the staff and brought it down over her head with two hands. Fjord quickly brought up the shield and knocked it away. “Or she,” she said.

Fjord nodded. “You’re right, the strongest person in the world can’t do shit if  _ she  _ can’t hit anything either. That was good, go again.”

Beau whipped the staff around his left side this time and it flew from her grip, spinning through the air to land several feet away. “Shit!” she called, stomping her foot in frustration.

Fjord jogged over to where he’d seen it land and tossed it to her. She caught it out of the air and grinned at her little victory. “That’s fine, you’ll get the hang of it.”

“We’ve been doing this for four days and I haven’t gotten the hang of it yet.”

Fjord chuckled and went over to kneel in front of her, sitting the shield on the ground between then and resting his arm on it. “I know that, right now, four days feels like forever. But I promise you, you have all the time in the world to master this. You’ll stumble in the beginning, everyone does.”

“Did you?”

“Oh, for sure. Are you kidding? I was the most gangly, awkward teenage half orc you ever seen. Seventeen years old and on my first ship, they handed me a sword and just said ‘there, that’s yours’ and left me to figure it out. It’s extremely difficult to practice swordplay while you’re getting sea sick, let me tell you.”

“You taught yourself?”

“No, thankfully I didn’t have to. Once I was able to pull my head out of the latrine, a very nice man took me under his wing, taught me everything he knew.”

“Like how you’re teaching me?”

“Sort of. I’m not an expert in staves, I can show you how to hold your own in a fight but the particulars are something you’re gonna have to work out on your own as you get to know your fighting style. Unless you wanna learn how to sword fight?”

“Not really. I wanna punch people to death.”

Fjord grinned and ruffled her hair. “That’s my girl. Alright, ready to go again?”

Beau nodded and held the staff in the exact center this time, spinning it around in her fingers. It was too long for her still and when it hit the ground it catapulted out of her hand. She scrambled to catch it in her arms and then glared at Nott when the goblin started laughing over on the side. “Go fuck yourself, Nott!” she called. In a fit of anger she marched over to where Jester was chopping firewood and sat the staff down on the tree stump. Jester paused mid swing and looked at her curiously.

“Are you sure?” the blue tiefling asked dubiously. Beau just nodded and Jester shrugged, bringing the axe down and chopping off two or three feet of wood off the bottom

Beau looked at it in approval and started spinning the shorter staff in her fingers once more as she went back to Fjord. “There. That’s better.” Nott was still snickering to herself but was poised to run if Beau came at her.

She turned back to Fjord to catch him staring at her, a little in awe, a little in fear. He cleared his throat and shook his head. “Beau’s gonna be so mad at me when she gets back,” he mumbled under his breath, but held up the shield.


	6. Chapter 6

Beau woke up to the sound of voices outside the tent she shared with Jester. The last few mornings she’d woken up with the tiefling’s arms wrapped around her like an octopus, but today she was alone. 

“What.” It was a deeper voice, one she didn’t recognize, and no inflection at the end. “Jester, what happened to Beau.”

“She’s fine, okay, she’s alive and she’s going to be fine, Yasha, she- wait!”

Suddenly the tent around her started to shake and she hurriedly reached for her staff laying next to her. The tent lifted up off the ground and she saw a large, dark figure pulling it away. She jumped to her feet and swung the staff as hard as she could at the figure’s legs. She looked up when the person growled and tossed the tent away and she saw a pale skinned woman dressed head to toe in black. 

Her face was blank and hard to read and she was just staring down at her. Beau whacked her again and the large woman grabbed the staff, yanked it from her hand and tossed it away. Beau sneered at her and balled up her fists, ready to die fighting but the woman didn’t attack. She just stared. And stared. It was almost three whole minutes of silent staring before she turned back to Jester, Nott, and Fjord who were standing awkwardly over on the side. There was snoring coming from the other tent. How was Caleb sleeping through this?

“What. The. Fuck.”

“Who is this person?” Beau asked, glaring at her friends. “Do you people just collect freaks?”

“You realize, you just called yourself-” Nott started.

“I know what I said.”

Jester stepped up between them, fiddling with her fingers. “Beau, this is Yasha. She’s another friend of ours. She’s just surprised, we didn’t tell her what had happened.”

“What do you have Sending for if you never use it for the important stuff,” Yasha sneered.

“I only have 25 words, it took at least a hundred words to explain this to you this morning in person, how was I supposed to Send it to you?”

Yasha huffed and crossed her arms. “Are you okay,” she asked Beau, and if was by far the most intimidating concern she’d ever received.

“I-I’m fine.”

The woman just went back to staring down at her. “She’s so… small.”

“Hey! I’m nine years old, that isn’t my fault!”

Yasha turned away from her then and started walking to the other side of the camp. “Nine. She’s nine,” she mumbled. She turned sharply for Fjord, who jumped. “How do we fix this?”

“Yasha, we’re already working on that. We’re taking her to Caduceus, he’s going to use Greater Restoration and she’s going to be fine.”

“Why isn’t he with you all right now, he was here when I left.”

“Something about the cemetery, I don’t know, he just left one morning. He was very vague about it.” 

She turned to Jester then. “Why aren’t you using that spell?”

“I don’t know greater, I just have lesser and it was the first thing I tried.”

“Is she safe? You haven’t run into any bandits or anything?”

“None so far, knock on wood. It’s been pretty quiet. I’ve been showing her how to defend herself in the meantime but she knows that in the event of an attack she’s supposed to run away.” Fjord gave the young Beau a pointed look and she rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Are you going to stick around?” Jester asked Yasha, quickly changing the subject before Beau and Fjord got into that argument again.

Yasha looked between Jester and Beau for a moment before nodding. “I can change my plans. I’m not going anywhere, so long as this shit is going on.” She started to walk back towards Beau, but paused and picked up her staff from where she’d thrown it and brought it back over with her. She handed it to the young girl. “Here. You hit well. Go for the kneecaps next time instead of the thigh.” Then she sat down heavily next to her, her back completely straight and her eyes glancing around the woods protectively.

Beau looked at Jester, bewildered, and the blue tielfing just shrugged and brought her over some breakfast.


	7. Chapter 7

They must have jinxed themselves.

“Bandits!” Nott yelled, swiftly dodging a bolt fired at her from the trees. Fjord dropped the reins and leapt from the front of the cart. Beau’s horse reared up when a flaming arrow burst from the trees and hit the ground right in the front of them. She tossed herself off the horse’s back and landed gracefully on the dirt just as Jester came up and stepped in front of her. The blue tiefling pressed the small girl up against the cart and held out her hand, ready to throw a spell if needed.

“You alright?” she asked.

Beau nodded and started looking around for where they’d put her staff. They’d taken it away from her earlier that day because she hit Fjord with it several times while practicing when he wasn’t ready to block her. ‘You’ll get this back when you can be responsible with it, young lady,’ Jester had said, while Fjord frowned and rubbed the growing bruise on his chin.

She ducked around Jester’s arm and climbed up into the back of the cart with Caleb, who was standing up and throwing spells around at their attackers, to look for the staff there. “Stay down,” he said, dousing the fire on one of his hands to reach over and pat her head comfortingly.

Beau started counting the enemies as they fell from the trees. Three down, then four, then five, then silence.

“Is that all of them?” Nott asked.

Jester hummed and started peering through the trees. “I don’t see any more.”

There was a quiet click from the bushes to Beau’s right and she looked over just in time to see a bolt fly out of the leaves, coming straight for her head.

She still had the muscle memory she needed to reach up and attempt to catch it mid air like she used to. Unfortunately, she just didn’t have the training or agility to wrap her fingers around it and it pierced through her open palm, the tip coming to a stop just a centimeter from her nose.

She pulled her hand away from her face and looked down at the wound. She didn’t feel it at first, adrenaline probably, but as her friends killed the man who shot her and started rooting around in their pockets, there was a burning pain starting to radiate from the hole.

“Ow,” she mumbled as it started to catch up to her. “Ow… Ow!”

Caleb looked down at her and his eyes widened. “They got Beau!” he said frantically, bending down to sit next to her. 

Jester was over before anyone else could move and gently took her hand, turning it over to get a good look. “Oh, you poor thing. Does it hurt terribly?”

It wasn’t unbearable yet, but it was getting pretty bad.  “I caught it,” she said, still a little stunned. “That’s kind of cool.”

Jester giggled nervously. “It’s very cool. Don’t worry, dear, I’ll take care of it. Hold still for me would you?” She could only stare at Jester as the cleric started nursing her wound, breaking the bolt in half with her bare hands and pulling it out with whispered words of comfort. “You’re doing so good, just a few seconds more.” Her hands glowed bright white and Beau watched as the muscle and skin knitted back together. Jester smiled. “There. All better?” Beau just nodded and Jester leaned over to kiss her forehead.

Everyone started moving around again, finishing their looting and asking her if she was okay, before the cart began shambling forward again. Caleb asked her to stay in the cart and he took her horse, letting Frumpkin curl up in her lap. No one seemed to notice how parental they were being towards her except for Beau.

She didn’t hate it. She thought back to her real parents and what she had managed to gather from the others about what they’d done to her. It had only been four days but these people were already better caretakers than her father ever was. 

Fjord smiled at her from the front seat. “We’re gonna start taking your training more seriously,” he said, reaching over to tug teasingly on her braid. “Maybe focus on dodging and work up to catching arrows, yeah?”

“I won’t be like this for long,” she said. “You’re changing me back, right?”

Jester in the seat next to him gasped, like she’d forgotten where they were going and why, and even Fjord looked a little surprised before turning back to the road.


	8. Chapter 8

“Did you know,” Beau called over the rumbling of the cart and the clopping of the horse’s hooves. It was early morning on the last day until they reached the cemetery and she and Caleb had taken over cart duty (Caleb had the reins of course, despite her protest) and he had handed her a book when he saw her beginning to get bored. In his experience, a bored Beauregard could get a little punchy. “-that the Xhorhassian traditional dance of the wolves is based off a dancing disease that swept the country five hundred years ago? People danced uncontrollably until they died of exhaustion. They started doing this dance at their yearly summer festival to ward off the disease and keep it from returning.”

He did know that. “No, I didn’t know that.”

Beau gave him an excited grin and started recounting all that she had learned about Xhorhas from the book. “I’m sure most of this is made up for the story,” she said, flipping through the pages to find something she read in the beginning. “And the story kind of sucks, it’s more like reading a history book, but it beats staring at the horse’s ass.”

Jester was on one of the horses, riding next to the cart, and looked at them curiously. “Caleb? What book is she reading?” 

He hummed distractedly and leaned forward to see the front cover. “Courting of the Crick.”

“The smut book?!”

Oh yeah. Caleb had forgotten about that. In a panic, he snatched the book away from her and tossed it in the back of the cart where it hit Nott in the face. “Hey!” she and Beau exclaimed in unison. It would have funny in any other circumstance.

“Sorry,” he said, his face bright red. “Y-You cannot read that one. I will get you another book.”

“But I want to know what happens.”

“No you don’t. Not yet anyway, maybe when you're older.”

Beau frowned and raised an eyebrow. “What’s smut?”

Jester started cackling and had to grab onto the horse’s head to keep from falling off. “Yeah, Caleb, tell her what it is.”

Fjord shrugged from the other horse when Caleb looked over at him for help. “You got yourself into this mess, man.”

“Uh… Well, when two... When two grown ups love each other very much…  _ Hilf mir bitte _ .”

He looked so pathetic that Nott felt the need to save him. She tossed the book off the back of the cart. “Oops. I dropped it,” she said, completely unconvincingly. “Guess we never need to learn what smut is. Ever.”

Jester grinned. “Come on, she’s old enough for  _ the talk _ . Caleb, when did your parents give it to you?”

“They didn’t! My father stumbled through some vague bird facts when I was twelve and called it a day. It’s easy for you, you grew up in a brothel, you explain!”

“Okay. See, like, there’s two different sets of parts and when they fit together sometimes they make a baby. One is a dangly thing called a-”

“No! No, never mind, that was a bad idea. We need to approach this delicately.”

“I’m not going to be any help, goblins don’t get any talk, I didn’t know my parents. When you’re old enough to bare children it’s just all orgies.”

“Nott!” Fjord exclaimed, coughing in surprise. “Don’t say that in front of the kid.” Everyone turned to look at him expectantly and he started to blush. “I grew up in an orphanage, all I know about it I learned from sailors and I’m not saying any of that out loud, kid present or no.”

Everyone turned, at once, to look at Yasha who was walking next to the cart, her long strides keeping up easily with the heavy, slow cart. “No.” She said, not even looking at them, keeping her eyes trained on the trees.

Beau frowned and looked between each of them before understanding dawned on her face. “Oh. It’s a sex book. Why didn’t you say so? Ew, no thanks.”

Caleb covered his face with his hands and groaned like he was in pain. “I hate you guys,” he said to Jester’s continued cackling. They rumbled forward into the late morning, leaving the book behind them in the dirt.


	9. Chapter 9

The firbolg was kind and patient, even when she started getting antsy sitting on his table while he inspected her that afternoon. “So?” she asked as he looked over her arm. “Are you gonna fix me or not?”

Jester poked her sharply in the back. “Say please.”

“Just fucking fix me. Please.”

Jester giggled but stifled it, trying to remain stern and failing miserably. She wasn’t made to be a stern parent, she needed someone else to do discipline. She elbowed Caleb in the chest and he coughed.

“Uh, language,” he chastised, sounding unsure. Jester huffed and started looking around at her other friends. None of them were really the disciplinarian type. Yasha is the person she might have considered her best chance, but the barbarian was sitting in the corner with her arms crossed, just staring at the tiny version of her friend with mixed emotions on her face. She was useless right now. Fjord could say the words but he didn’t have any follow through, he’d give up when she didn’t listen to him the first time. He was useless too.

Beau just rolled her eyes and they all turned to Clay for his verdict. He shook his head. “I’m afraid this is not something I can fix.”

It felt like the air had left the room. “What?” Beau asked, her voice croaking. “You mean that you personally can’t fix it or that it can’t be fixed?”

“It can’t be fixed. The effect is permanent. There was a short window after the casting that would have allowed a reversal, but short of finding the mage who created it, there’s no way to undo it now.”

Beau barely noticed Caleb’s thumb rubbing slow circles on her shoulder or Jester’s hand gripping her elbow. “I’m stuck like this? Forever?”

“Well, not forever. You will grow to your previous age eventually, but it will be several years from now. I don’t foresee any adverse effects. It appears that the spell simply turned back your clock. Oh, don’t look so sad, child. Consider this a second chance at life.”

She gripped the edges of the table until her knuckles went white then she threw herself off of it and landed on the floor violently. “I need some air.” She turned sharply and stormed out of the little hut.

Caleb moved to follow her but Fjord gently put a hand on his shoulder, shaking his head. “Just give her some time.”

Beau walked through the graveyard, uncaring of the plants she crushed under her feet. She marched to the stone wall and grabbed the vines that grew up and over it, pulling herself up to the top and then sitting on it to stare out at the forest around her. 

“Sitting at that height is dangerous, young one,” Caduceus said in his soothingly deep voice as he walked up behind her. He reached up and plucked her from the wall like a flower. She struggled in his hands but he lowered her to the ground with ease.

“Hey! No man-handling. I’m not afraid to kick your ass!”

The firbolg smiled disarmingly and pat her head. “You’re so passionate. It’s a good quality and will serve you well in this new life ahead of you.”

“Don’t just say it like that, like I should just accept it! You have no idea what’s going on in my head, I have memories that might be memories or they might be dreams or they might be completely made up. I have scars that I don’t know how I got. I know that I have a father and a mother and I know that I’m no longer welcome at home but I don’t know why and I don’t know how. There is so much that I don’t know and I feel like I’m being crushed under it all!”

He sat down in front of her so that his head was at the same height as hers. “Then learn. The unknown can be scary and unforgiving. If nothing else, think of how much learning you have ahead of you.”

“That’s not as comforting as you seem to think it is.”

Clay shrugged. “Learning is inevitable. Might as well look forward to it.” The firbolg smiled. “What exactly is it that has you scared, little one?”

“I’m not scared. I’m not scared of anything.” She paused and breathed in deeply through her nose, letting it out in a sigh that was too haggard for someone her age. “But… they’ve been wanting this whole time to get their friend back. They just want the Beau they know and love already. If she’s not coming back… I don’t know what I’d do if they didn’t want me anymore. They’re the only home I’ve got.”

Clay apparently didn’t have any more inspirational mumbo jumbo because he didn’t say a word, just swept her into a loose hug and pat her head. She frowned but let it happen, keeping her arms crossed against her chest and hiding her tears in the fur on his neck.


	10. Chapter 10

“Are you mad? About me?”

Children were so frank, Yasha didn’t think she’d ever be used to it. She looked up from where she was aggressively sharpening her sword, tucked in the corner of the graveyard, away from the group. Beau was staring at her with wide, innocent eyes, her stance guarded but hopeful. “No. Not mad. Confused. A little sad. I feel like I lost a friend. Again. I will never be able to see the person I knew again.”

Beau nodded but looked down at her hands. “I’m gonna grow up though. I’ll be her again someday.”

Yasha shook her head. “No, you won’t. That Beau was raised by cruel people who couldn’t love her. She grew from pain.” She nodded over to the others and Beau followed her eyes to see them all laughing while Nott and Jester recounted something that happened in a temple in Zadash a few weeks ago. Beau had heard the story three times and it was different and funnier each time. “The person you’re going to be will grow out of laughter. You will not be the same person and I just want to mourn the person I lost for a short time.”

“I’m…” Beau’s face pinched. “... sorry.”

“It is nothing you need to be sorry for. My feelings are not your responsibility. And being different from her isn’t bad, I don’t want you to think that. I’m glad you’re here if she can’t be.”

“The others… are they sad about me?”

Yasha hesitated but nodded. It would do no good to lie, Beau would know eventually. “They miss her. It’s hard, because she is gone and here at the same time. But they’re excited to get to know you. They love you.”

Beau shook her head and her expression and stance closed. “They loved her. And if she’s not coming back, I’m just some kid they don’t know.”

“They love you. I know they do. Jester and Nott were talking about getting you a Winter’s Crest gift.”

Beau looked up at her in shock. “Winter’s Crest is forever away.”

“They know. And they want you to be there when it comes.”

Beau couldn’t fight the small smile that cracked her sour frown. “What about you? Do you want me around?”

Yasha was quiet for a moment and Beau almost walked away. “Yes,” she said, finally. “I’m excited to see the person you’ll be. I think you’ll be a good one. A happy one.”

Beau nodded sharply and turned around before she started crying again. She stepped up beside Caleb as Jester began miming her blink spell. He gave her a small, kind smile and slipped his arm around her shoulders. It didn’t occur to her to push him away. 

Jester glanced up at her and grinned, opening her arms and gesturing for Beau to come sit in her lap. Beau looked up at Caleb and he nodded, sliding his hand to her back to gently push her forward. “You like Jester best, I’ll try not to feel bitter about it.” But he was smiling slightly. She had yet to see a full smile from him.

Jester grinned and pulled her in, squeezing her before just letting her relax on her lap. “That’s right. I’m her favorite. I want to show you some of the drawings I did this week while you were with us. I made them for Old-Beau so that I could tell her about you but now I want you to see them.” The first picture Jester opened to was of Beau, three stories tall, smashing a building under her foot and smacking a much smaller Caleb with her staff. This woman was an artistic genius. “And this one is how I imagine you meeting Kiri for the first time would go. Oh! We should go the Hupperduke next! You’d love it, they have a party every night and fireworks, it’s amazing.”

“And guns!”

“No guns, Nott.”

Nott elbowed Beau gently in the side until she leaned over to hear. “I’ll steal you one. Promise,” the goblin whispered conspiratorially.


	11. Chapter 11

“Hold up,” Caleb called. “We’re here.”

Beau peeked over the side of the cart sleepily. The sun had fallen long ago but they others had insisted they keep moving. Jester had been cuddling with her lazily in the cart, telling her a heavily edited version of Tusk Love, and gave her a bright smile as she sat up. “We’re just visiting a friend, Button.” Beau wasn’t sure where that nickname had come from. She didn’t even wear any buttons. But she prefered it to many of the other nicknames she’d heard Jester use. She’d once called a rude nobleman they passed on the road Sir Poopy Pants the Third to his face. Nott had been asleep, curled into her other side, and she woke up when the cart stopped. “You can stay in the cart if you’d like.” Jester climbed out but Beau immediately followed. The tiefling giggled and took her hand, holding it and swinging it back and forth playfully. Nott rubbed her eyes tiredly and took Beau’s other hand, letting herself be lead deeper into the trees.

The ground was covered in a thin layer of snow and more was falling and sticking to her eyelashes. She frowned and shook her head to dislodge them as she took in the scene. There was a stick in the ground, standing up out of the snow with a long coat draped over it.

“A grave?” she asked. “Who is it?”

Caleb smiled at her sadly. “Our good friend, Mollymauk Tealeaf. He died a few months ago. We wanted to visit while we were in the area.” He sat down on the ground beside the grave and Nott let go of Beau to sit down with him.

“He was my friend?” She didn’t have any memory flashes of him.

“ _ Ja _ , he was a good friend. You know those cards you’ve been playing around with? They were his. He taught us that we should always leave things better than we found them. People, places, everything. I want you to remember that, okay? And try your best to follow it.” She nodded solemnly and he smiled softly. “ _ Gut _ , I am glad.”

Everyone looked sadly down at the grave and Beau shifted awkwardly, clearing her throat when the quiet got to be too much. “I like his coat. Has it been hanging here for that long?”

Caleb nodded. “ _ Ja _ , I was sure someone would have stolen it by now.”

Fjord snorted. “I don’t think even the coldest drifter in the world wants to wear that thing.”

Beau reached forward to touch it and found it frozen solid. She ran her fingers down the sleeve and saw something poking out of the pocket when she jostled it. Curious, she reached in and pulled out a long ribbon, the same red violet color of the jacket. It was pretty cold but still soft and had been protected from the elements. “Look,” she said, holding it up for Jester to see.

“Oh, that must have come off the jacket. There were always things falling off.” Jester turned back to talk to Yasha quietly, her grip on Beau’s hand relaxing until they slipped apart. Caleb was reading aloud from a book about the history of circuses he’d bought when they stopped in Shady Creek for supplies and Nott was listening with rapt attention at his side. Caduceus was gently tending to some fungus that was growing on the stick they’d used as a grave marker and Fjord was just standing quietly off to the side, his face a storm of emotion.

She started to put the ribbon back but paused when she felt a hand on her head, gently tussling her hair. “ _ Keep it _ ,” whispered the wind. She turned to look but there was no one there and the weight of the hand was gone. She looked around but none of the others seemed to notice. After a few moments she started back towards the cart to give them some privacy with their lost friend.

In the cart, she pulled her braid over her shoulder and took out the dagger Fjord had given her. In one swift movement, she sliced through the braid. She tossed the end of the braid off the side of the cart and then cut off any lingering long pieces until she had something that vaguely resembled a pixie cut. She knew it was probably a mess but she was sure that Jester would insist on fixing it when she was finished at the grave. She took her new ribbon and tied it to the end of her staff.

It was as good a fresh start as any.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who read, gave kudos, and commented.
> 
> I wasn't sure about the ending. I thought a couple times about letting them change her back but, in the end, I liked this better. I hope you enjoyed it.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [After A Fresh Start](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15798933) by [conceptstage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/conceptstage/pseuds/conceptstage)




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